The consultation was concerned with a proposed new publication entitled CAP 1724 Flying Display Standards Document. This new CAP is to be available alongside CAP 403: Flying Displays and Special Events: Safety and Administrative Requirements to ensure that the process of display pilot evaluation is standardised as far as is practicable. This proposed CAP1724 provides a single point of access to guidance for Display Pilots and Display Authorisation Evaluators (DAEs) in areas such as preparation, the conduct of the display and standardisation and evaluations. It contains regulatory guidance material to enable Display Pilots and DAEs to perform their tasks, discharge their responsibilities and maintain compliance with applicable aviation law.  

It is vital that this new CAP reflects the latest thinking on flying display standards to allow the display industry to prosper whilst maintaining public safety at all times. Feedback from the regulated community is crucial in supporting this.

Those familiar with CAP403 will have noticed that much of our proposed material for CAP 1724 was in Edition 15 of CAP 403. This is because we took the view that the Display specific material was sufficiently distinct from the legal, safety and administrative requirements of those organising flying displays themselves to warrant its own publication. Therefore, by splitting the guidance across two publications, each audience is better able to absorb the shorter, more targeted, and above all more focused document.

We compiled a draft of CAP 1724 and consulted on it over five working weeks from 17 December 2018 through to 18 January 2019.  This consultation was parallel to the CAP 403 consultation that ran until 11 January. 

We received a total of 411 different comments to the draft CAP 1724 from 14 respondents. All respondents were from the Display community including Display Pilots and DAEs. Two responses were formal submissions from representative bodies or associations. 
The majority (64%) of the comments advocated changes that were textual in nature, suggesting streamlined wording or highlighting minor drafting points. Many of these comments were duplicated between respondents. 

There were also another 41 comments (10%) that did not advocate any change, with most expressing support for the approach we took. For example, our decision to split the content into respective display standards and flying display organisation documents was largely supported by the respondents.

The remaining 41% of the comments suggested more substantive amendments that required a judgment on whether they implicated changes of policy. 

We accepted 197 of the all the comments suggesting some sort of change (51%), of which 95% resulted in an amendment to the proposed text. 
We accepted 41% of the 263 textual comments received. Most of these comprised rewording content for clarification, and we have tried to take a balanced view on what would be helpful. Several respondents suggested clarifying definitions, and where possible we tried to accept these, however some suggestions would have meant revising CAA standard definitions which involves further work and may be considered in due course.

Of the 127 substantive comments, we implemented 63%. These comprised of 55 comments directly accepted into the document, 17 that were thought to be similar to a change already suggested either by another respondent or in the context of something else and another 8 were noted for consideration in either another Edition of this CAP or another document. 

Regarding the changes we elected not to implement, some respondents requested further explanation that we deemed was either explained adequately elsewhere or was not necessary. Some changes would have impacted not just in this document but other material even outside the CAA. Finally, some suggested alterations would require substantial policy review including in some cases amendment to the Air Navigation Order (ANO), both of which are beyond the scope of this consultation, but we welcome further inputs to policy and the ANO, as and when these are released for consultation. 

We have produced a final version of CAP 1724 Edition 1, which was published on 22 February 2019.